She has her daddy wrapped!

I came into the living room to find my sweet husband, playing beauty time with our little Avery Cate.  It was so adorable, I had to get my camera out to capture the cuteness!  I think he may have a thing for his daughter.  And I think she likes him a little bit, too. Love :)

Busy, busy!!

We are usually a boring, do-the-same-thing-everyday type of family.  But it always happens that every now and then, the stars collide and we get these crazy busy weekends that even a pretty organized, on-time person can't seem to handle! Now, don't get me wrong!  I looove these weekends!  Family parties and gatherings are my most favorite things to do, especially when they are these types of parties.  We had my cousin Danielle's high school graduation, my cousin Rachel's college graduation, my nephew Ryan's 3rd birthday party and my SIL Katie's baby shower.  Not only that, but my cousin Nicki was over (up?) from Colorado for all of the graduation parties.  Craziness, right?  

We started the weekend up and early to make my famous (yeah, Pinterest famous, but they were requested!) Oreo balls for the grad parties. These are easy to make, but they take a little bit of time, freezing and dipping the balls one at a time and stuff.  That would have been fine, but I'm stupid and ruined three different bags of chocolate because at some point I forgot how to melt it. But whatever, they turned out delish and were eaten up by all of the high school grads pretty fast.  

It was a fun party!  I am so proud of Rachel and Danielle!  I can't believe they are GRADUATES now!  One from high school and one from college!  Where does time go, seriously?  The kids had fun.  Cam and Ryan ran around half naked, playing badminton and volleyball and Avery was her shy, flirty little self that everyone seems to love (well, I do at least!).  I got to hang out with my cousins and spend some much needed time with Nicki.  After my sister Tina, she was my first best friend ever.  She was born about a month after me and we've grown up together ever since.  Hopefully one of the times I say, "We need to come out and visit real soon!" will actually end up being a real plan!  

 Danielle (high school grad), Nicki, Tina, Michelle, Rachel (college grad) and me

 Everyone from above, plus Cheryl and Auntie Carol

We got home late and tired from this party, so everything that I planed on doing for Sunday, got pushed back to actually do on Sunday.  What a great idea. But Sunday morning, we started out making another batch of Oreo balls, which went much more smoothly, wrapping the gifts, and making a DIY gift/decoration for the shower.  Ryan's party was at 1, so we headed over, spent about 30 minutes there then left!  I was soo sad to leave!  Of course we left Cameron.  It's Ryan, his best friend and there was a bouncy house..with Batman on it!  How could I drag him away from that?  I didn't even get a picture!  I'm such an awful auntie.  But I stole this picture from someone on FB of the big birthday boy.  Isn't he the cutest?  

We headed over to the shower at my in-laws, Avery and Mark in tow.  Mark came to hang out with his brother, Matt, who wanted to be there for Katie, but with all the women there?  He may have passed out!  They kept to themselves, mainly, and once again, I didn't take my Camera out once!  I pretty much followed Avery around most of the time.

So, Matt and Katie are having a girl, Josie.  She's due at the end of August.  They are a super fun couple so we thought something a little different then the plain old diaper cake would fit them better.  So I found this on Pinterest.  I made two (that Sunday morning!), to top off the decorations of the party.  I think they came out great, but I forgot to take pictures!  But this is pretty much exactly what they looked like, but with a monkey and teddy bear.  A hit for sure!

I stole another picture, of Avery this time, to show that we were actually there.  I can't believe I don't have a picture of Katie and her pregnant belly!!  We had fun, it was beautiful weather, and we stayed far after the party was over!  We ate with Googa, Papa and the soon to be parents. Cameron was like the classic little boy, running after and catching fire flies.  It makes me smile when I see the other things that make him happy.  Things that don't need batteries and don't begin with an "i" :)

Busy weekend, but a very good busy!  None of these things will ever happen again.  You only graduate once, you only turn three once and you only have your first baby once.  And I am so happy I got to share these special times with these four people.  I'm so proud and happy for all of you!!  Love you all :)

Father's Day Weekend

Father's Day.  I have such a hard time thinking what to do to celebrate this day!  To honor everyone, Mark, my dad and Marks dad, in one day is tough!  This year, at least, my father in law was up in Maine, giving us only two people to celebrate. As adult men, I feel like when they want or need something, they buy it, right?  So what is left to give them as gifts?  The kids and I (haha) decided to give Mark the option of two things: a fun gift, an outdoor remote control helicopter (Think Bruce Jenner) or a more reasonable gift, a new grill. He loved both ideas and has yet to decide which to choose.  For my dad, all of the kids decided to bring him into Boston for a sunset cruise to see the Tall Ships come in around the Fourth of July.  He loved the idea.  But for the day, the whole family went down to the Cape (big surprise!) and spend the day together, minus PJ and Kevin.

Cool kids, I know

And we had a ton of fun!!  For the first half of the day, Tina and Ryan were down and after the boys got over the initial hyperness that always happens when they see each other, we decided to all go to the dock and let them try and catch some fish. Now, lets talk dock stuff. We have two big community docks in the association.  I freak when we are on the docks with the kids.  I strap that life jacket on Cam before he even steps on and even then, I still freak out! I don't want him to be afraid because I am nervous, so I try to just make sure someone is close to him AT ALL TIMES!  Last year with Avery, I'd wear her in the Ergo and all would be good.  This year, I was super nervous about her jumping in, so I had Mark put her in a stroller and we rolled her onto the dock. I locked all the wheels and hung on. When I saw a cute photo op, I stepped back like 15 feet, looked through my viewfinder for about 10 shots, put the camera down, and she was about 1 second away from being completely out of the stroller!!  She had wiggled herself under the tray, knees on the dock and just about ready to pull her head out and be free.  So yeah, I screamed, with no voice mind you, for anyone near her to grab her! Which they did and I ran over, freaking out that she could have run over to the edge and jumped into the water and no one would have even noticed.  Oh and did I mention Mark put her in the stroller? Yeah honey, the straps are there for a reason.  A big, HUGE safety reason! Ugh, the docks....

Tina and Ryan

My Daddy, the longest love of my life :)

Twinkle toe's

But anyway, they fished.  They little boys had fun and Cameron caught the only fish of the day, a flounder, his first salt water fish ever!

Proud! Oh and he's shooting spider web's out of his hand at me in this picture, too.

After fishing, we went back to the house to hang out.  We attempted a grandchildren group shot and this is what I ended up with:

Aubrey (9mos), Cameron (3), Ryan (3), and Avery (16 mos)

It was a perfect afternoon for flying kites, so we did!  We used Cameron's beloved $2 alien kite.  He loved launching it up in the sky and then going on the jetty with Papa after we were done.

Sort of looks like he see's God or something, but no, just a kite!

We all left early and stopped for dinner at Captain Al's Tiki Bar.  There was a man playing the piano, which Cam loved! He kept walking from our table to him to see if he was really playing.  I tried to get him to put money in his basket, but for some reason he was afraid!

So, happy Father's Day Mark!  We had a great day playing with you at the beach and hope you had fun with us too!!

Yikes!

I haven't posted in forever, but I have photos from the weekend!  Just no energy tonight!  Come back and visit tomorrow night!  You'll see some Cape Cod cuteness of my littles! 

In the mean time, nuh night!

Swimming in the summer!!

Finally, really FINALLY, we went to the Cape and actually walked down to the beach.  First time this summer, I know, pathetic right? But, we drove down Sunday morning on a mission: the kids needed water shoes!  Our beach is pretty rocky and I didn't like the idea of the possible shell cutting their feet.  They have their Crocs, but I didn't think they were going to stay on while they were swimming.  I think it took us about an hour to go into 6 stores looking for some.  And we ended up with nothing!  If a store had them, they were way to big for my kids tootsies.  Fail.  But in the process we ended up with a goggles and snorkel set, a boogie board, and these God-awful full body bathing suits with floaty stuff sewn into them.  Mark picked the suits out :) When we got down, we had lunch, flagged down the ice cream truck, and headed down to the beach, Crocs and all.  

We set up shop on the Pocasset river side of the beach, which is a bit safer for the wee one.  (I found out later that this is a big fat LIE after a video was on the news of a damn huge shark was spotted in the river a few days later.  They said it was 14 feet, but a basking shark, which is supposedly harmless, but come on! It's still a shark!)  Anyway, this was Avery's first trip to the beach as a toddler and she had fun.  Well, the second I put her down to play on the shore, she grabbed a fistful of mud and put it straight into her mouth.  So, after that, she had fun.   

Chasing the seagull!

Piggies!

These Puddle Jumpers are the best!  Try them out!

Mimi, Ave, and Papa

After swimming, we took a walk on the bay side, caught some crabs and played around.

 
Hiking over to the other side

  

I'm in a photo!

     

She was so proud to be up on the rocks!

 Hunting for crabs

Oh and did I mention Cam is like, the pro bike rider now?  This year he can reach the peddles no problem and knows how to do the breaks and what not.  Our road is really quiet so I only get a little neurotic when cars come.  He loves riding his bike though, mom screaming "car, car... CAR!" or not.  

Vrooom!

So that was that!  A major success for bringing the kids to the beach, both as walkers.  No running off in opposite directions, no dropping the beloved sippies into the sticky sand and no sunburns!!  Hey, it went so well, we just may go back ;)

And we were spent!!